Waking
by ShirouHokuto
Summary: After the death of Jiro's father, Joe thought he would stop dreaming. He was wrong. Joe/Jet, post episode 30 of the 1979 anime; written for galerian-ash for Yuletide 2013.


**Author's Note: **_My Yuletide fic for this year, written for galerian_ash! Thanks again for the awesome new fandom._

* * *

**Waking**

Joe hadn't stopped dreaming.

He'd thought that he would, for some reason, or at least that the dreams would - change. That they would become worse for a little while, throwing his lie and his failure back in his face, and then vanish into the electronic ether until some new problem or enemy reactivated them.

But they were always the same: a long-unheard voice calling his name, begging for his help, then fading into darkness when Joe ran to meet it. He woke from them each time the same way, still reaching for an empty space, and didn't bother trying to sleep again afterwards. He couldn't go out for drives alone anymore, not with the Neo Black Ghost waiting in the shadows; he walked the ship's halls instead, poor substitute for an open road and a rumbling engine that it was.

He wished he'd saved the knife.

Not for - not to damage himself, that would be pointless. He shouldn't think like that at all. Just to have something of Jiro, a physical memory; something to touch when he woke up, something that could remind him.

(That he'd taken Jiro's place not once but twice - first in the detention center, then in a father's heart.)

He should have pulled the blade from the sparking console and kept it, but he hadn't had the chance. That worried at him while he walked, though it had no effect on the dreams.

If he could just run faster while he was dreaming; a little faster and he might be able to catch hold of something, anything solid that might end the dreams, for good or for ill or for worse. But his brain still dreamed in human limitations: tendons that groaned, muscles that ached for oxygen, lungs that labored to supply it, and the blur of speed he could rely on while awake was as far out of reach as his father's voice and Jiro's knife.

"Oi, 009!"

Jet's voice clanged in the unlit hallway at exactly two twenty-three in the morning. Of course it was Jet who'd find him, even when he didn't want to be found; the others had so far had the kindness to leave him alone. Joe slowed down anyway, and Jet with his lanky legs caught up in moments to pace the depths of the ship beside him. In silence, at first, and if they had continued in silence Joe would have had no complaints.

Instead Jet broke the routine again. "How about we go for a quick drive, huh?"

Joe considered not answering, but his mouth opened. "You know we can't."

"Ah, true, we're not supposed to go out on our own - but the two of us together? I think we can manage if we run into trouble." Jet's hand landed on Joe's shoulder and rested there, a cool, solid weight. "I'll fly us to a town and we'll be back before anyone else even thinks about waking up. Well? You up for it?"

_No_, Joe should have said, but "All right," came out. "Just a short one."

"That's the spirit," Jet said.

The ship wasn't far from a coastline, and the flight was smooth and short and quiet besides the roar of the wind and Jet's engines. They landed outside of a small town with only a few flickering streetlights; there were no signs declaring the town's name as they walked in, and no other people out and about. A little too late, the flaw in Jet's plan occurred to Joe, and he said, "Nothing's going to be open at this time."

"You're telling me now you forgot how to hot-wire a car? I mean, I can still pick a -" Jet stopped when he saw Joe's jaw drop, then laughed. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I called up a pal of mine who lives around here before dinner and asked if I could borrow his car tonight. Keys'll be in the glove compartment and it's parked outside his place, so it's no problem. I don't want to get in that kind of trouble again either, you know."

"Ah, right..." Joe looked down at the uneven pavement, its spiderweb cracks blooming with round yellow flowers, and it also occurred to him that he had so lost track of the ship's course lately that he had no idea where in the world they were.

The car turned out to be a modded Trans Am painted an unpleasant dark pink splashed with lemon yellow. A terrible thing to do to a car with such clean, sleek lines, but after Jet had fished the keys out of a glove compartment stuffed with old receipts and a broken flashlight, the Trans Am started up with a solid, steady rumble. At least Jet's "pal" hadn't ruined the engine.

The countryside around the town was dark and flat, the roads mostly straight with the occasional gentle curve. Perfect driving country; Jet claimed first crack at the wheel, since he'd arranged for the car, and they sailed along the moonlit roads in peace and quiet. At one point Jet tried the radio, but nothing was on the air besides static. Joe preferred the silence anyway, with only the familiar noises of the working engine to disturb it.

After half an hour or so, Jet turned onto a gravel drive that wound up the gentle slope of a small hill, and at the top he pulled off to the side. Joe jumped out and headed for the driver's side, but Jet had shut the door already and pocketed the keys. "You can drive her back," he said, "but let's get some air first." He hopped up on the car's hood and stretched his legs out, his back resting against the windshield. "It's not a bad night out... Look at all those stars, that's a sight you don't get in the city."

Joe leaned against the Trans Am's side and looked up. The near-full moon's light washed out the stars closest to it, but with the nearby towns asleep in darkness, the rest of the sky still shone bright, with only a few shreds of thin clouds drifting across the horizon. It was a beautiful view; at another time, when he wasn't waiting with a heavy stomach for Jet to speak again, he would have appreciated it.

But the silence stretched out past the point Joe had predicted, until his nerves were so frayed and frantic that it was a sick sort of relief for Jet to say, "You know, 009, no one's holding it against you. We stopped the Neo Black Ghost and saved those sailors - that's the important part. The rest, who cares? Just because your old man got mixed up in -"

"He wasn't."

"Eh?"

"He wasn't my father after all," Joe said, but the words didn't lift the weight from his chest so he had to keep going. "He wasn't - he was Jiro's father. He gave the knife to Jiro before giving him up, and I took it after he - he didn't recognize Jiro. He didn't see the knife until I had it, and that's why he thought I was his son. But I'm not. It was Jiro." Still no relief from the weight, but what else was there to say?

"Damn," Jet said, breaking the silence before it became unbearable again. "That's - we didn't know. I didn't realize -"

"But I wanted him to be!"

That was it. That was the loose end of the weighted knot in his heart, still heavy and tangled but beginning to unravel.

Jet slid off the hood and took a step towards Joe. "009 -"

Oh, how Joe hated that habit of theirs sometimes; they knew each other's names but it was their numbers that rolled off their tongues more often than not. "I wanted him to be my father so badly," he said past the roughness in his throat, "even if he was evil - I thought that if he was my father I could make him see, I could get him to leave the Neo Black Ghost. I thought he might change, and when he didn't - and then he saw Jiro's knife, and -" The unraveling knot choked him, the strands twisting and pulling his heart in every direction. He had wanted so much and he'd been so _wrong_ and he'd lied to spare a dying man a little more pain, but a man who had killed his own son didn't deserve that mercy. But Joe had still lied, still wept for a man who could have been his father and if stupid, interfering Jet hadn't come along and interfered just like he had tonight there would be no more dreams, no more voices lost in the dark, no more wakeful, empty nights with empty hands.

Jet stepped towards him again and Joe's shoulders hunched. "No one's going to blame you for that," Jet said, "we all know what it's like - you don't have to beat yourself up for a mistake."

"it wasn't just a mistake! It was - it's still -" But there his voice failed at last, strangled by tears that he couldn't hold back anymore, and he hid his face with his arm. He didn't know what he felt, what he mourned the most - for Jiro, for a murderer, for himself the fool to hope in the first place.

Then Jet's hands grabbed his shoulders, shaking him. "Joe! Snap out of it, Joe - you don't have to shed a tear for a man like that!"

"I can't just - if he had been my father, if he had been and still -"

"Well, he wasn't!"

Joe's breath caught, and Jet yanked him into a tight, rough hug as he said, "You said it yourself just now, didn't you? He wasn't your father. You did what you could, for your friend and for that man, they couldn't ask for more - and if he had been your father, so what? You don't have to give a damn about a guy who'd just leave you like that. You've got a family now - the Professor, he's the best father you could want, and there's us, too. You don't have to chase after some bastard who'd abandon you, you got that? So don't waste any more tears on that man, Joe, on any of 'em."

"002..." His head was still nestled against Jet's shoulder, and all his senses were filled with Jet: the near-silent buzz of circuits, his yellow scarf silvered by the moonlight, the warmth of his breath at the top of Joe's head. "Jet, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to - I didn't want to burden you with all this, I didn't mean to say anything."

"Hey, don't worry. You think you're the only one around here with an old man they didn't know or want to know? We're just glad you're still - I'm glad I got there in time." Jet's voice was harsh, but there was a crack in it as he said, "Damn it, I thought you'd really - don't do that to me again!"

The untangling knot had hollowed Joe out and left him light, empty of every feeling, and so there was no surprise in him when Jet lifted his chin up and kissed him.

It was a cold, hard kiss, with metal behind it. The solidity of it gave Joe weight again, enough for him to kiss Jet back, letting the firmness of Jet's mouth and the coppery taste of it ground him, stabilize him until he felt - not human, maybe, but at least real and awake for the first time in days.

When they finally broke apart, Jet rested his forehead against Joe's and said, "So, ready to take your turn behind the wheel yet? Try and show me up?"

"I think I can handle it," Joe said, sneaking the keys out of Jet's pocket and giving his face a quick wipe. "Jet..."

"Ah, don't ruin the moment. Let's just get back before we get caught, yeah? We still have some night left -" Jet's long face split in a crooked grin. "- and I don't want to waste it."

They drove back to the town with the windows rolled down to let in the cool air and in an entirely different kind of silence: a silence charged with a giddy electricity as they flew through the gentle grey-washed rolls of the countryside towards home and bed.

* * *

_Joe? Joe, where are you? Joe, help me! Help me, please, Joe!_

He ran, but blood and flesh dragged at his limbs and slowed him down.

_Joe, I need you! Help me, please!_

He stretched out his hands and dove into the darkness, reaching for that desperate voice. A little farther and he could reach, his fingers spread wide to catch whatever he could -

They tangled in soft cloth and hard buttons; another, sleepy voice rose out of the dark, inches from his ear. "Oi, it's not even five yet... Lemme have another hour, will ya?"

Joe smiled, then rolled a little closer to Jet's side of the bed and the blankets Jet was hogging. "Sorry. Go back to sleep, it's fine."

And with Jet at his side, it was.


End file.
